These outputs relate to the approaches projects have taken to managing costs related to the management of OA implementation.
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4): ‘Pre-payments and the development of the APC market’***
This literature review describing benefits and disadvantages of pre-payment deals, is an attempt to pull together the issues surrounding pre-payment models and the development of the APC market to inform further discussion.
Access and download the report here
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4): Offsetting Implementation review***
This review of current offsetting deals focuses on the practical issues of implementing the available deals and briefly compares the deals with the Jisc Principles for Offset Agreements.
Access and download the report here
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4): The Ultimate Prepayment account***
University of Bristol, one of the Bath Pathfinder project partners, outlines their wish list for the ultimate prepayment account
***Northumbria Pathfinder: Cost Modelling tool***
This tool is intended to help establish an internal business case to set up an APC fund for Open Access publishing. It allows you to model different cost projections based on variables such as FTE, number of articles, REF submission targets, and % Green vs Gold OA.
It is a development of initial work undertaken Northumbria University in 2014 which led to the University Executive approving a £100K/annum internal fund for Gold Open Access costs.
You can access and download the tool here
*** Bath Pathfinder (GW4): FAQs for publishers***
These ‘FAQs for publishers’ are intended to assist publishers in processing APC payments for Gold Open Access on behalf of authors and their institutions. It is hoped they will provide answers to commonly recurring questions, explain issues and promote understanding between all parties involved in APC payments.
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4): Open Access Reporting Checklist and Sample APC Payment Workflows for Institutions***
This checklist is intended to assist institutions in identifying data required for OA reporting to Jisc for RCUK (APC spreadsheet) and HEFCE for REF OA.
Open Access Reporting Checklist for Institutions
Mapping workflows at the four collaborating institutions identified a generic series of ‘steps’ in each payment scenario used by each institution. This led to the development of sample workflows for each payment method which it is hoped will provide a useful aid for institutions developing new, or adapting old, workflows. Institutions may need to adapt the sample workflows to suit their own requirements, systems and processes.
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4): Guide to using credit cards for APC payments***
This guide is intended for institutions that are considering (or currently using) purchase cards for APC payment. The guide outlines some of the benefits and issues around card use.
***Bath Pathfinder (GW4) report: Functional Cost Analysis to evaluate the APC payment process***
Released 23rd March 2015
The Bath Pathfinder project have just released a draft for comment of their analysis of the administrative costs of processing APC payments in the four universities of the GW4 alliance: Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter. Functional Cost Analysis (FCA) methodology was used to investigate labour costs per APC payment and identify resource intensive functions with a view to later improvement. An obvious but important finding evidenced by the report is that the larger the RCUK grant, the smaller the administrative costs and time for each APC payment. There are clear economies of scale.
If you would like to comment on the report or get more information, please contact Kara Jones (k.l.jones@bath.ac.uk)